Monthly Archives: August 2009

If you’re craving a multi-touch trackpad on your laptop but don’t want to upgrade to get it, then have a look at the USB Multi-Touch Smart Pad from Brando. At first glance it’s just a USB keypad for laptops but it’s actually a multi-touch trackpad, complete with 2 and 3 finger gestures (no sniggers please). There’s a dedicated, easy to hit button to swap between keypad and touchpad so you can switch without looking. The gestures allow you to rotate…

Gardeners rejoice! Now you can have the best of all worlds – great plants that rotate automatically to catch the sun. The Solar Powered Hanging Plant Basket Rotator uses a weatherproof, timer and internal solar cell to power the weight-activated turning mechanism. Attach a plant to the basket and the carousel rotates 360 degrees twice a day. Totally solar powered, there are no batteries to change and it holds up to 12kg (27 lbs). Great for heavier plants, especially when…

This 2.4GHz Wireless Shoe Covert Camera is really pushing the boundaries. It comes in two parts, the covert camera with a 2.4GHz transmitter which resides in a shoe or similar and the fully working tri-band, 3″ GSM cell phone which receives the camera signal and records it. The phone has 1Gb of built-in storage and the camera can broadcast out to about 50 metres. Thankfully it’s US$329 so no one will buy it. This omejo shoes camera’s biggest function is…

BucketVac is a clip-on attachment that will turn any 20 L (5 gallon) bucket into a vacuum cleaner that can handle wet or dry mess. Just clip the BucketVac over the rim of the bucket, the Bucket Vac will hold the handle upright, and plug it in. When you’re done the BucketVac comes off and stows neatly away. Not available until fourth quarter of 2009, but they’re taking names. Here’s another use for that 5 gallon bucket everyone carries to…

This Car Charger to Mains Socket Adapter lets you plug your 12 Volt car charger plug into the UK mains. Useful for reducing the number of charger adapters you have to carry I suppose, otherwise I have no idea why you would need one. £4.99 This great little device allows you to use your car charger in a standard UK mains socket. there’s no need to take your mains charger to work, simply use your car charger and this handy…

1freeaday gives you something for nothing, every single day. Sure it’s something random and you might not need it, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be something you do need tomorrow. Each free item is limited to the first 100 applicants but there’s been some nifty stuff. All you have to pay for is shipping and that’s a flat US$4.59 anywhere in the world. Not only do they give away free stuff but they also tell you what they’re going…

The Vexia Econav 435 GPS will get you where you’re going and save you fuel along the way. Just tell it what type of car you’ve got (there over 6,000 models in the database) and how many people you’re carrying and away you go. The Econav will give you directions as well as telling you when to accelerate, suggest which gear to use and when to change for ultimate fuel economy. It won’t, however, tell you to wash your hands…

There are a million Flash games out there, here’s a few tried-and-true faves of ours so you should be able to find something to amuse yourself. Otherwise pop on over to FRIV and you’ll be spoilt for choice. Panda: Tactical Sniper – There are now three of these Panda games. In P:TS 1 and P:TS 2 you need to bail out the cute and fluffy Panda by sniping your way through puzzles. Panda’s Big Adventure sees him down guns and…

Headphile makes art from headphones. Starting with high end studio headphones, Headphile can turn something black and plasticy into a warm, wooden wonder. Pretty much any type of high end headphone (Beyer Dynamic, Grado, Sennheiser or AKG) can be modded with improved wiring, better cables, new speaker grills or wooden enclosures. There are also two original designs, the Terminator V4 and the Vixen, which combine the best parts from different headphones for the ultimate sound experience. It wouldn’t be art…

The misleadingly named Windows “Task Manager” pretty much only lets you “manage” tasks running on your PC by shutting them down one by one. The Auslogics Task Manager will show you not only all processes and applications running, but also all services and even all files that are currently in use, and what’s more you really can manage them – for processes, for example, there are an impressive number of things you can do. [Click to Enlarge] The developers have…

Sometimes, you just want to tell the whole world something and you feel lost among the bazillion services out there that let you create a blog or a wiki or a forum or a social network or a shopping list or a gift registry, but really all you wanted was to make a webpage. Not a fully-fledged site, maybe just an idea for a site, or to publish big news fast, or to plan a party or whatever. Dinky Page…

Feel like a hot dog but it’s too much effort to boil the frankfurters, toast the buns blah blah blah? Well now you can go all 7-11 and pick up one of these Hot Dog Rotisseries and you’ll be set in minutes. Cooks 4 sausages on the non-stick rollers and it can warm two buns at once. The fat from the sausages drips down into an easy to clean tray so you stay nice and healthy. Sort of. £29.95 Now…

There’s been a bit of malware talk of late here on the Ferret, and unsurprisingly it’s been pretty much a Windows-only affair. We’re all about equality around here so here’s a quick little rundown on the state of malware for the OS X platform. There aren’t a lot viruses out there yet and there’s nothing particularly alarming in the list but as Apple continues to increase in market share it’s going to be increasingly attractive for malware writers to target…

This Propane Tank Scale lets you know how much gas you’ve got left in your 9kg (20lb) propane tank by weighing it. It needs two AA batteries and the scale reads in quarter tank increments. Just leave your gas tank on it and check it after you use it and you’ll be fine. Trust us. US$29.95 Our patented Propane Tank Scale uses a sensitive electronic scale and LED warning lights to make sure your barbecue never sputters and dies with…